What is biometric technology, and what kinds of ethical issues do certain uses of that technology raise?

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Biometric technology is a major emerging industry, which is supported by many financial giants, including banks, IT firms, and the government. This technology was originally developed to verify the identity of persons by a requested body part, whether it be a person’s eye, finger, facial recognition, and many other means, such as voice recognition. In order for this system to work, a computer must store a template of the specific person’s eye, or other part, and when called upon the computer will attempt to match it with the template on file.

For most people at first glance this seems to be a great advancement in technology, and it will most likely just add to the security of the country. Although that may be the case, like Irma Van der Ploeg, I have many concerns about the emergence of this new technology, particularly with the governments use. This technology may become so advanced that complete government control of people’s daily lives becomes inevitable. What started as a fingerprint instead of a time card to document the hours an employee works, may grow to a technology where the law enforcement will arrest you for thinking of committing a crime; which could have just been a fleeting thought.

This technology could have many positive traits as far as security, but the question we must ask ourselves is, how much freedom are we willing to give up for security, or better yet do we have any say in that matter? People seem to instinctually abuse the available information to them, similar to how many search engines now use the private data in your emails, to cross-channel market to people based on the information they write, or receive in their emails. My main concern is that there will come a point in time, where I am fearful of speaking my mind because there is a facial recognition camera on a satellite recording my every word, and could possibly persecute me for thinking illegally. Maybe this is farfetched, and maybe I am a conspiracy theorist, but this sure is something to be cautious of.